Rahul Gandhi to Launch ‘Save Constitution’ drive today

New Delhi: Accusing the BJP-RSS leadership of “systematically destroying” the Constitution, the Congress on Sunday announced that its President Rahul Gandhi will launch a nationwide “Save the Constitution” campaign on April 23 from Delhi’s Talkatora stadium.

“Rahul Gandhi ji will launch the campaign on April 23 at the Talkatora Stadium. Senior Congress leaders will join him,” AICC Scheduled Caste Department Chairman Nitin Raut said in a statement.

He said that the party’s scheduled caste leaders from block to national levels will participate in the programme and the campaign would go on for nearly a year till April 14, 2019.

“The campaign would be taken up at the state-level by the party’s respective SC departments to reach out to the common man at the village level,” he said.

The Congress campaign comes at a time when the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is holding “Gram Swaraj Abhiyan” across the country under which Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked party MPs and MLAs to spend a night in Dalit-dominated villages.

The Prime Minister’s direction to party leaders came after violent protests erupted in parts of the country after a Supreme Court order allegedly diluted the Scheduled Castes and Schedules Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

Raut said that the BJP and RSS leadership was systematically destroying the Indian Constitution to wreck the country’s social fabric to enforce their pernicious Manuwadi social order that was contrary to what the Constitution had nurtured and protected.

“Ever since the RSS-supported BJP has come to power at the Centre, the Constitution has been under severe attack, in one form or the other, thereby denying the marginalised sections of society their constitutional rights,” he said.

Raut said that the institutions such as the RBI, Supreme Court, Election Commission and erstwhile Planning Commission were all under threat.

“The RBI was sidelined while deciding on demonetisation. The Planning Commission was dismantled to establish NITI Aayog that has no accountability. The voice of four Supreme Court senior most Judges has been silenced and the Election Commission made to wait for government’s approval to announce election schedules,” he said.

The Congress leader said that the BJP-RSS combine is set to dismantle the social security available for SCs, STs and other weaker sections.

“The RSS ideology attacks the basic structure of the Indian Constitution. This would be countered by the Congress,” he said.